What persuades you to Believe?

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ordinarydude

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I ask out of curiosity. I also ask due to the gravity of the implications on our mortal reality.

There is yet no laboratory in the world that has procured reproducible, independently testable evidence which unambiguously points to the existence of the supernatural. (At least none that I know of)

Despite this, what persuades you, as a Catholic, to believe in God? Why do you follow the Catholic tradition in particular? Why not the other religions who also claim to have the eternal truth?

If there is at least one true religion, is it still not dangerous to pick from the multitude of extant religions? One could easily pick the wrong one. The odds are stacked against the prospective faithful for it seems that all religions condemn other religions as false and worthy of damnation!

I understand that the extant faiths today are handed down from generation to generation. They are ancient stories that have been told and retold from predecessor to successor. But some of us have had the experience of playing “pass the message” in our days in school. Many times the endpoint is a distortion of the original, and that was just for a short period of time. How do you justify your belief amidst the possible errors that occur during transmission?

And how do you, as faithful, remain adherent to your faith despite modern science explaining away phenomena in non-supernatural terms? E.g. the experience of a “spiritual presence” as a mere orchestra of neurons firing in the brain.

Forgive me if I have many questions. But if you have answers, please enlighten me.
If you are willing, please indicate if you were raised Catholic, or are a convert and from which religion/non-religion so I may understand your background.
 
Hey ordinarydude,

Born into a Baptist household, became a Calvinist in my early 20s, flirted with atheism in late 20s early 30s, am now Catholic and hope to so abide.

I believe because I choose to.

I think objective morality exists. There are things that are objectively wrong and objectively good, even as concepts like “goodness” and “wrongness” aren’t particularly suitable to a laboratory environment. They’re more philosophical.

Because I think objective morality exists, it requires a driver; a la “God”.

Past that, Christianity is the representation of God within my culture and Catholicism is the most defensible form of Christianity that I have found (Orthodoxy being a very, very close and highly related second).

I think Christianity paints the moral struggles within man in a better way than other religions do; particularly on the context of western culture. But if you happen to be a Buddhist, I wouldn’t try particularly hard to convert you. Obviously many feel differently.

I’d caution against your implied standard of material evidence. Most of what makes you abstractly human defies materialism. For example, I’ve yet to see a beaker filled with “love” or “hate”.

Good and ancient question!
 
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Thank you for your reply!

I would have liked to asked about how the position of objective morality is arrived at and how this leads one to necessarily believe in a God, but I do not have the strength to physically continue (it is 2:00 AM where I am and I am just about to go to bed. I’ll come back to this tomorrow, i guess and check on the development if any).

I usually find the utilitarian view of morality a good way to decide on what actions to take since its effects are supposedly measurable. As per your statement regarding love or hate, I think neuroscientists are still trying to crack that puzzle. Maybe they will soon translate these formerly abstract concepts into physically measurable data. I don’t know how I should feel about that though, having my brain’s mechanisms simplified into chemical reactions. I’m not a hard atheist after all.
 
Raised Catholic and never changed.

I need to separate “belief” from “faith” here.

I believe in the God of the Christians because it has a logic to it that really does fit human nature. I think the Greeks, who were very sophisticated in their philosophy, saw it almost immediately after they heard about Jesus. He was the answer to all of their philosophical inquiries. The Romans were of a less theoretical cast of mind, but were exceedingly practical. To them, Christianity simply made sense, but it also gave them spiritual respite from the cruelty of their culture as it had developed.

It fits humanity like a glove on a hand.

I believe in the God of the Church because the Catholic Church has expressed such enormous wisdom and sanctity throughout two centuries, that I cannot opt for some truncated version of it. I am very much unable to “reinvent the theological wheel” and have enough humility to recognize that.

Finally, of course, there are the manifestations and miracles, including some I believe I have witnessed myself. I do not, for a moment, believe “science” has discredited any of those of which the Church approves. On the contrary, it seems every time I turn around, some scientific discovery bolsters belief, not the other way around.

“Faith” though, is equivalent to “trust”. We’re all in a condition where we can either accept that there is a loving God or deny it. Personally, I prefer to trust.
 
ordinarydude said:
I would have liked to asked about how the position of objective morality is arrived at and how this leads one to necessarily believe in a God,
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It’s “accept or reject”. Axiom. I think the (pseudo)scientific equivalent is “brute fact”. Free to agree or disagree with no penalty to raw logic.

As an example, I don’t think rape and genocide are never “ok”. But from a utilitarian approach, they’re “ok” if they somehow serve the common good. And as to how one measures service to the “common good”, I find that to be far more relative and thus not-objectively measurable as many like Sam Harris may want to claim.

Particularly pertinent given that some prehistoric rape is probably in our own family trees and genocide was a by-product of the rise of homo-sapiens. After all, 100% Denisovan or Neanderthal hominins no longer roam our planet.
I don’t know how I should feel about that though, having my brain’s mechanisms simplified into chemical reactions. I’m not a hard atheist after all.
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I’d welcome the info, but it won’t “kill God” or anything like that. I think the chicken-and-egg scenario of “does person X make you produce ‘love’ in your brain” or “does ‘love in your brain’ determine your feelings about person X” will never be definitively solved from the scientific perspective. It involves culture, which is hard to measure.

Sleep well.
 
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This won’t persuade anybody of anything, but I love the story.

In “Gulag Archipelago”, Solzhenitsyn writes about a lot of individual prisoners. One of his brief stories was about an old woman whose name, I believe, was “Chmiel”. She was a very religious woman and bore up with the privations patiently and cheerfully. The guards considered her an idiot. It was common, in identification, for guards to ask the name, patronymic and sentence of the prisoners. A guard asked her one day “Chmiel, what is your sentence” (it was 20 years, of which she had spent two). “Sentence?” she asked “My boy, I don’t have a sentence. I’ll be here until God forgives my sins.”

"Oh, the guards said “You’re an idiot. A fool. You’ll be here until you have served every day of your sentence and perhaps then some” (which was not uncommon). Chmiel simply smiled and went on her way.

A few days later, an order came out of nowhere ordering her release; something absolutely unheard of at the time. No explanation, nothing. No period of exile. Just release.
 
Great question and it is no doubt one that many of us struggle with at times or keep coming back to. I grew up in the Jehovah’s Witness cult (though never baptized), moved on to agnostic/atheist, a very brief period in Baptist and Methodist churches, baptized/confirmed in Episcopal Church, spent about 4-5 years Anglican, and now about to be confirmed in a confessional Lutheran synod (Missouri Synod). I strongly believe in the Real Presence of Christ’s body and blood when it comes to the Sacrament of the Altar. Considering that this belief is something I can’t compromise on, it leaves Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, and some Anglicans. It kind of narrows down the field and I believe that the Augsburg Confession is a catholic statement of faith and, thus, I have went the confessional Lutheran route.

If we look at it from a scientific perspective, mathematics indicates a design. We can explain so much around us using mathematics and the fact that we can understand it using formulas is amazing. Furthermore, if everything (the universe) didn’t come into existence the exact way it has, everything would cease to exist. The mathematical probability of all of this just being sheer accident is so improbable, that I can’t accept that it was all just an accident.

Now, that may explain “God” for me, but what about Christianity in particular? It is all about Christ for me. Out of all the leaders of the world’s religions, you can’t find Christ in the ground. His apostles went from being defeated to being willing to die a horrible death to declare his resurrection. They were willing to sacrifice everything for their belief that Christ is risen.

Beyond that, faith has been a process for me and I have had struggles throughout my life, but God, in his infinite mercy keeps bringing me back into the fold when I have doubts or I stray. If it wasn’t for God’s work and mercy and if faith were left solely up to me choosing by myself, I would no doubt be lost.
 
I am persuaded to believe by two things.

The first is a personal experience of God’s presence, a single encounter, that pretty much set me back on the path to belief when I had been away for a while. In short, I spoke to God and He spoke back. I recognize that this is wholly subjective and completely incapable of convincing you though, I just wanted to mention it.

The second reason is that rationally, I can see no alternative to the existence of a god. Knowing that something must exist, Catholicism is the only belief structure I’ve found which is rationally coherent and capable of defending itself and providing satisfactory explanations for all my questions. I don’t necessarily like all of the explanations, but they are still rationally coherent, and therefore superior to the explanations I receive elsewhere.

There is order to the universe and our development that speaks to an intelligence, rather than to chance. The specifics of our world are detailed in such a way that the likelihood of them occurring by chance is infinitesimally small. Take, for example, our recent solar eclipse. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, and yet is also precisely 400x father away. This results in a perfect alignment which completely encompasses the sun. This sort of thing, while technically possible through chance, is highly unlikely, especially when combined with all of the other “highly unlikely” circumstances which resulted in our planet being just right for habitation.

This is just one of many examples of the precision and order to our universe which speaks to an external intelligence.
 
People often say every religion claims they have the one true faith. Yet where two faiths conflict on a certain question, only one can be correct. So over time, you can reason which beliefs are correct. For instance, polygamy cannot be God’s wish for people. Compare a beautiful marriage with what happens when a man strays or takes another wife. You just know it’s wrong by its fruit. So you can dump the religions that support it. On each topic, you can do this. Using the principle of non-contradiction, basically, and studying the fruits of certain things is what helps me decide.

Another way I see God is in the design of certain things, namely bananas and shamrock plants. For shamrock plants, they defy engineering principles. How can such big leaves be supported by such a small stem?

After I pray or go to Mass and receive the Eucharist, I always feel fortified and happy. I doubt I’m just telling my mind to feel better because if I could do that, I’d just do that whenever I felt down.

I also believe because either Jesus was a mad man or he meant what he said. He can’t be both.

I also have received so many blessings and warnings. One time, I was stopped at a red light, and for some reason I didn’t go forth despite it turning green. My sister watched this from the 21st floor of a building. Another car came roaring through the red light from my left, and I would have been creamed if I had followed the usual procedure.

I also experienced closeness with God in illness.
 
It’s not really “what”, but Who.

I recognize the voice of our Creator in Jesus. I was raised in a Christian church, so I heard the Gospel message at a very young age.

I can’t know what it would be like to be a Gentile before Christ. All I know is that I recognized the Great and Good Shepherd speaking from eternity, into my very core. He penitrates right to the heart of men, with faith, hope and love. No one speaks like Him.

John 7
The officers then went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this man!”
 
Well as some people have pointed out I do believe objective moral values explain what we see in our life way better than subjective moral values.
A (in my opinion) good refutation of moral relativism can be found here :


The reason I dont follow other traditions well, I would at first say is because of thats what I grew up in. But I don’t think thats an argument or shows the truth of anything at all, and pretty much Christianity in essence is way different than other religions, such as it making the historical claim that God came down to earth, died and resurrected. Historical scholars agree or disagree on the question of Jesus ressurection (And I would say there is more evidence for the positive than the negative ) but they all agree on the exsistance of Jesus.
He is noted in a lot of works outside the Bible.
I think the strength of the church even to this day gives me extra affirmation on this being the truth.
Christian philosophy is beautiful to me , and I think if I looked at the other philosophies that come from non-Abrahamic religions, it does not occur to me why belief in God would even be important, as most of them seem pretty deistic.
The Abrahamic religion while twisted for bad desires sometimes ( Islam ) has mostly stayed in tact even with the many years.
I think there is enough reasons to believe the Bible has been accuractly transmitted, ( I would not say 100 % accurate but pretty accurate ) as unlike today, people in the ancient times cared deeply about passing on the message in full truth. The gospels for example were pretty early after Jesus’s life and mission.
Theres more to this argument, but its been a while since i watched something on that topic so I am not that sure.
I don’t think modern science could disprove “spiritual presence”
I would say that lot of people do believe in it despite it not being there, and in a scenario where lets say this spiritual presence was real, we would have no way of distinguishing between it being the truth or not, as its pretty subjective. The closest we could do is psycho-analyze the person but when it comes to religious psychology, a lot is also subject to bias.
I look up to Thomas Aquinas the most as he had the best arguments for God while also knowing the arguments against God and hearing them out. Its important to draw a line when doubt is reasonable, as we believe in things despite doubt. The standard is reasonable doubt, not without a shadow of a doubt.
This might be a more subjective one, but, the lives of the saints really prove how great christianity is. Theese people give up many things and are set free, they are happy while they are being killed.
The subjective part of this is we really don’t know if its another psychological/social factor in this or not, but to me the consistency of the lives is good enough proof.
Mother Teresa also hadn’t felt any “spiritual presence” and continued believing. I think spiritual presence is good, but not necessary for belief.
 
I am grateful to all of you for your replies ! I have heard much more from the likes of Dawkins and Harris than from any serious adherent of their faith so figured that my understanding is quite unbalanced. This is what prompted me to ask this question to those with conviction in their belief. I realize now that there are many positions which I have not yet considered from the side of the religious.

I sense a similarity to your answers. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think I can summarize them into the following:
  1. The orderliness that you observe from the cosmos implies for you a creator.
  2. The Catholic tradition is the one religion which is rationally satisfying.
  3. You sense that this is the True religion because of the unique “pull” of it via its statutes, and for some, personal experience. I quote @rcwitness, “No one speaks like Him”.
  4. The lives of the Christian saints are a testimony to the truth.
Now I know this is from a small sample of respondents and this may not be the whole thing. If there are more points that anyone want to mention further, I would like to read them.

For a lot of the cases put forward, such as subjective experience, it is up to the person involved to accept or reject these as enough to convince one of the existence of God. Some people like Harris dismiss subjective interpretation because they are often not consistent when other people view the same or a similar experience. I don’t think I am as hardcore as he is though. I think each subjective interpretation has its own value, or perhaps some truth to them, even if not the complete truth.

@DetectiveNiko, I like your statement that the standard is reasonable doubt, and not the absence of doubt. After all, not even science claims that it holds the truth beyond any doubt.

@ProdglArchitect, your experience particularly intrigues, me. You are the only one here who claims to have been spoken to by God. How do you know that it is God who spoke to you? Are you saying you have experienced an interior locution?
 
ordinarydude said:
@ProdglArchitect, your experience particularly intrigues, me. You are the only one here who claims to have been spoken to by God. How do you know that it is God who spoke to you? Are you saying you have experienced an interior locution?
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I know it was God because it was accompanied by a sense of peace that I had never felt before, nor have I since.

I was dealing with some stuff at the time, particularity being apart from my wife for a long stretch of time for work. I had just started feeling the pull to come back to the faith in earnest, but was not sold on the idea because it required some… significant changes to my life that I’m still working on implementing completely.

It was a very short experience in a dream. I was standing in probably the most cliched concept of Heaven possible, white clouds, golden gate and all. I know intellectually that this probably isn’t what Heaven is like, but these images are so ingrained that they make good shorthand for defining the location. There were two men, one older and one younger. I didn’t recognize them as God and Jesus initially until the older man spoke. All He said was “It’s going to be okay.” Instantly, every worry I had, every trouble, it all melted away, and I was completely at peace. It was like a warmth in my chest… it honestly defies description.

I know this is totally subjective, and the non-believer could simply say it was all in my head, but there was something about the experience that denies me that option. I had no concept of this type of peace prior to the experience, I don’t think it’s something my mind could have invented. It was also accompanied by an absolute knowledge that I had spoken to God. There was no question in my mind about what had just occurred. I just knew it.

I hope this helps you out in some way. I know it’s not any real sort of proof for anyone else, but it was enough to not only get me practicing my faith again, but to get me genuinely interested in knowing everything I can about it. It set me on the path I’ve been on for the last five years, and that path, while difficult, has done nothing but improve my life and make me a better husband and person.
 
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ordinarydude said:
I ask out of curiosity. I also ask due to the gravity of the implications on our mortal reality.

There is yet no laboratory in the world that has procured reproducible, independently testable evidence which unambiguously points to the existence of the supernatural. (At least none that I know of)
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The supernatural is outside the natural order
  1. of, relating to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.
A Laboratory is in the natural order. We can’t expect a lab to give us supernatural answers.
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ordinarydude:
Despite this, what persuades you, as a Catholic, to believe in God?
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  1. It’s easy for Catholics. We Look back to Jesus (God incarnate) the founder of the Catholic Church. The record is there, by eyewitness accounts.
    The NT was written in, by, for, the Catholic Church. All instituted by Jesus. The Catholic Church put the bible together. All 73 books. Then 2000 years of history, the Early Church Fathers, [http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/] all there for one to read going back to Jesus.
  2. The next part is belief. Thomas Aquinas, a 13th century theologian and Doctor of the Catholic Church, wrote a very profound statement
"to the person of faith, no explanation is necessary, to one of no faith, no explanation is sufficient"

Such a simple but profound reality

What other founder of a religion, performed incredible miracles, cured incurable illnesses, raised people from the dead, then raised Himself from the dead, and ascended back to heaven all seen by eyewitnesses and recorded. That is what Jesus did. Nice touch… right?

Who else did that? Nobody
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ordinarydude:
I understand that the extant faiths today are handed down from generation to generation. They are ancient stories that have been told and retold from predecessor to successor. But some of us have had the experience of playing “pass the message” in our days in school.

how do you, as faithful, remain adherent to your faith despite modern science explaining away phenomena in non-supernatural terms? E.g. the experience of a “spiritual presence” as a mere orchestra of neurons firing in the brain.

Forgive me if I have many questions. But if you have answers, please enlighten me.
If you are willing, please indicate if you were raised Catholic, or are a convert and from which religion/non-religion so I may understand your background.
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The operative word is faithful. Look again at the Quote above from Aquinas, and then ask God for faith.
 
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When I was very young I remember the way I conceptualized Jesus was something like: Jesus is God’s Son, He’s God too. But at the same time remember thinking, the best way to know God is if He became a human. Why doesen;t He do that? When the dot was connected in my mind that He did become human that God did just what I thought He should…well that increased my faith anyway. I don’t remember ever not believing.
 
has any laboratory on the planet earth proven that only the physical universe exists?

if not, why is the denial of the spiritual realm equally suspect, or even more suspect, than our affirmation of the spiritual realm?

as to why i believe, i have never encountered any one or any thing that is more reasonable than the teachings of Jesus Christ as presented to me by the successors to the Twelve Apostles.

i echo with St. Peter, to whom should I go. Jesus has the words of eternal life.
 
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Thanks to all of you for your replies!

I was actually raised Catholic but somewhat fell away from strongly believing. When I was younger, I was simply taught things and that I was supposed to believe. These were simply the “facts” until I came in contact with atheists and hard science people at my college. They started contradicting religion in general by saying that it’s just made up stories that were used for various reasons. They also had their champions like Dawkins and Harris, and I started listening to those two on YouTube. Having a little bit of a science background, I understood their standpoint, but at the same time, I didn’t have my own well-grounded reason to believe so I doubted.

There’s still one problem though, both sides can agree that there is no definitive scientific proof for one to absolutely correct, and the other wrong. All the arguments that are presented from anywhere only at least point to the possibility of there being a deity. There’s still the “leap of faith” element where only we can decide if the arguments presented are good enough for us or not. I’ve heard some atheists say that if something remains unproven by the scientific standard, the safest option is to suspend belief. For me, however, I think you’ve won me back.

@steve-b, St. Thomas Aquinas’s statement is a fact but I guess it still helps to offer some explanation
for those doubting. Maybe offering some explanation makes you an instrument of God to bring back people to himself?

If there’s still anyone out there to wants to add their answer to the initial question, please feel free to do so. There might be something that you know that none of us have considered yet.
 
Truth.

Jesus said I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Jesus founded the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church is the pillar and foundation of Truth.
 
ordinarydude said:
Thanks to all of you for your replies!

I was actually raised Catholic but somewhat fell away from strongly believing. When I was younger, I was simply taught things and that I was supposed to believe. These were simply the “facts” until I came in contact with atheists and hard science people at my college. They started contradicting religion in general by saying that it’s just made up stories that were used for various reasons. They also had their champions like Dawkins and Harris, and I started listening to those two on YouTube. Having a little bit of a science background, I understood their standpoint, but at the same time, I didn’t have my own well-grounded reason to believe so I doubted.
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Peter, our first pope 😁 gave 7 attributes we are to add to our faith. Note the 2nd on the list is knowledge, and if we don add these attributes in ever increasing amounts, IOW don’t stop increasing in these, then one falls. And that’s what one doesn’t want to have happen

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ordinarydude:
There’s still one problem though, both sides can agree that there is no definitive scientific proof for one to absolutely correct, and the other wrong. All the arguments that are presented from anywhere only at least point to the possibility of there being a deity. There’s still the “leap of faith” element where only we can decide if the arguments presented are good enough for us or not. I’ve heard some atheists say that if something remains unproven by the scientific standard, the safest option is to suspend belief. For me, however, I think you’ve won me back.
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👏
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ordinarydude:
@steve-b, St. Thomas Aquinas’s statement is a fact but I guess it still helps to offer some explanation
for those doubting. Maybe offering some explanation makes you an instrument of God to bring back people to himself?
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As our 1st pope taught


Recognizing Aquinas is giving an explanation to what happened between Jesus and His own disciples when Jesus gave them the bread of life discourse. Not even God in the flesh made His own disciples believe. He could do anything but He won’t force faith on anyone. He won’t take free will away from us either. His disciples like all of us, had God given free will. It’s what makes us all free to choose right and wrong, and it is what makes us culpable. And Jesus said, they (those disciples) also had no faith.


To Aquinas’s point, to someone of no faith, no explanation is sufficient, then not even God in the flesh, speaking to one face to face could convince even His own disciples in that discourse. Atheists then who remain atheists will NOT be convinced no matter how many ideas are presented to them.
 
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